Mood and voice of the Arabic verbs

In the last lesson, we saw how Arabic verbs inflect for gender, number, person, and tense.

Now it’s time to see how they also inflect for mood and voice.

What are the moods of Arabic verbs?

Arabic verbs have four moods: indicative, subjunctive, jussive, and imperative.

  • The indicative mood expresses a straightforward action, a simple statement or fact.

  • The subjunctive mood reflects doubt, desire, intent, or wishing.

  • The jussive mood is often used with the particle لَمْ (lam) to negate the past and serves as the base form for the imperative.

  • The imperative mood is used to give orders or commands.

Let’s look at some examples of each mood:

Moods in Arabic

What are the Active and Passive voices in Arabic?

The active voice is used when the doer of the action is the subject of the verb, as in: I ate basbousa.

The passive voice, on the other hand, is used when the object of the verb becomes the subject, as in: The basbousa was eaten.

Let’s look at some examples in Arabic:

Active voice in Arabic
Passive voice in Arabic
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